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Program Description

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency's (USDA FSA) Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) offers payments to producers of eligible crops to protect against low yields, loss of inventory, or prevented planting due to a natural disaster.

General Program Requirements

You may qualify if you're a landowner, tenant, or sharecropper who shares in the risk of producing an eligible crop. You must have an ownership share of that crop and your average adjusted gross income (AGI) cannot exceed $900,000. Other terms and conditions also apply.

Your crops must be commercially produced, agricultural commodities for which crop insurance is not available in the applicable county.

Eligible crops may be any of the following:

  • Grown for food.
  • Planted and grown for livestock use, like grain and forage crops, and native forage.
  • Grown for fiber, like cotton and flax (except trees).
  • Grown in a controlled environment, like mushrooms and floriculture.
  • Specialty crops, like honey and maple sap.
  • Sea oats and sea grass.
  • Sweet sorghum and biomass sorghum.
  • Industrial crops, including those used in manufacturing or as feedstock for renewable or bio-based products.
  • Value loss crops, such as aquaculture, Christmas trees, ginseng, ornamental nursery and turf-grass sod.
  • Seed crops with stock produced for sale as seed stock for other eligible NAP crop production.

You must contact a crop insurance agent with questions about insurability of a crop in your county. To learn which crops qualify for NAP coverage, you must contact the FSA county office that keeps your farm records.

An eligible natural disaster includes:

  • Damaging weather, such as drought, freeze, hail, excessive moisture or wind, or hurricanes.
  • An event such as an earthquake or flood.
  • A condition related to a natural event, such as excessive heat, plant disease, volcanic smog (VOG), or insect infestation.
  • Any combination of these conditions.

The disaster must directly affect your crop and occur:

  • During the coverage period, and
  • Before or during harvest.

NAP provides basic coverage (service fee) equal to a catastrophic level risk protection plan where the loss:

  • Exceeds 50% of the expected yield at 55% of the average market price.

Buy-up coverage (service fee plus a premium) is also available in ranges between:

  • 50% to 65% of the yield, in 5% increments, and
  • 100% of the average market price.

Other terms and conditions apply.

Application Process

Visit the NAP page to get more details.

You must apply for coverage of non-insurable crops at your local FSA office, and pay any service fees that apply. You must also file by the application closing date set by your state FSA committee.

Last Updated: 05/02/2023